


Kevin

by amagicbeyond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:38:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amagicbeyond/pseuds/amagicbeyond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin Tran is dead, and it's Dean Winchester's fault. What can a desperate man do but pray?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kevin

**Author's Note:**

> Post 9x09 fic, written during the season 9 hiatus and posted, belatedly, now. Dean/Cas friendship, only implications of something more.

_Kevin-_

_Kevin-_

_Kevin-_

His voice had stopped, but the name continued, not a name, a word, a word scrawled on a piece of damning yellow paper, a word made meaningless, a prophet, a kid. It followed him stumbling through the checkered halls of his home,  _his home_ , past the burnt-eyed body that was not Kevin,  _it wasn't him_ , past the hollow pathway the angel had walked  _(Sammy, Sam, what have I done?)_  the angel, foreign, evil, thief, disease,  _gone._   _(Sammy where have you gone?)_ He stopped in the doorway of his room, not remembering the journey there, safe haven, home.

_Kevin-_

“Cas?”

His voice betrayed him. He sank to his knees, to the bed.

_Just once, just this one time, please_ -

“Cas, I-”

_It's Kevin. And it's Sammy, I-_

“Can you hear me?”

Too long a silence, too long like every time, every breath he held with every prayer he spoke, Dean Winchester, a praying man.

A phone rang.

Dean looked down in surprise to see that in his hands he held his phone. He pressed the button.

“Dean.”

Something within him broke, or perhaps was mended.

“I hear you.”

***

The Impala was unmistakable, a black mark on the horizon, the man leaning against it with his arms protectively crossed no less so. Cas stepped from the bus, hyper-aware of the sun, the slight breeze, the stolen grace that pulsed within him.

“Dean.”

Dean looked at him, and Cas didn't think, just saw a broken man and remembered another, wrapping arms around him while he stood still in angelic surprise in the faded light of Purgatory. A gesture born of joy and friendship, a gesture for another time, perhaps, but Cas knew humanity now and it was that part of him that moved toward Dean, his friend, his broken friend.

Dull were his eyes, as his eyes never were, and weighted with guilt and loss, and anything he might have said was lost and swallowed back as Cas hugged him, Dean's arms the ones, this time, lifted in surprise.

Cas closed his eyes, and breathed Dean's scent, and wished that a stolen grace could let him give Dean peace.

After a long moment, Dean gripped him back.

***

Dean was embarrassed, he knew, by his display of emotion, but Cas had expected this and so he sat in the front seat of the Impala –  _Sam's seat, this is Sam's seat_  – and just let Dean talk.

It came in bursts, punctuated by long, angry silences, anger Dean only ever reserved for himself. Cas could not be angry with him, not after the shattered way Dean had prayed his name.

_Can you hear me?_

I always hear you, Dean.

“Sam is not gone,” he repeated, because Dean needed to hear it again. “The false Ezekiel lied to you. An angel cannot completely overtake their vessel.”

Dean considered this.

“What about you?”

Cas blinked in surprise. “What about me?”

“Your  _vessel_ ,” Dean spat, gesturing and almost, barely, looking at him. “Jimmy. Are you telling me he's still in there?”

Cas was still staring at Dean. “Jimmy Novak is dead.”

Dean was, momentarily, silent. “When?”

“The first time I died,” Cas said. “In Chuck's house, at the hands of the archangels.”

Dean processed this. “So you've been wearing a dead guy suit this entire time?”

“Isn't that better?”

The real answer was that no, Jimmy's body had been incinerated, blown to pieces, taken apart molecule by molecule. The one he wore now – the one that had witnessed the Apocalypse, the one that had drowned in the Leviathan-stained river, the one that had walked the earth as a human – this one was all his own.

Dean looked at him, sideways, for a little too long. “Better.”

Longer still, and he said, “But what if Sam is dead?”

“Then isn't that what he would have wanted?”

The silence grew cold. Cas retreated.

“I don't believe he is dead, Dean. The angel can use his strength. If we can find him, we can still get Sam back. This is not over.”

“It is for Kevin,” said Dean, and it was the last thing either of them said for the rest of the drive.

***

Dean found no warmth in the funeral pyre.  _Kevin Tran, advanced placement_. Ashes to scatter in the wind.

Cas' arm was pressed against his, and he tried not to lean but he might have, his disbelief that the remade angel was really there slowly giving way to a steady sense of gratefulness.

Dean had kicked him out into the cold, to save Sam, he had told himself. Told Cas twice he had to go. And still, here he was, staring at the flames with a very human sorrow Dean had not yet grown accustomed to.

“A prophet until the day you die,” Cas said.

“What?” said Dean, their voices too loud after so much silence.

“That's what I told him.”

Dean remembered.

_Today, Cinderella!_

He opened his mouth to say, “That angel's gonna die,” but what came out was, “That should be me.”

“Dean-”

“That kid never asked for any of this. He had a girlfriend, and a mom, he was going to college. He deserved better than that bunker, he deserved a better family, he deserved better than what I-”

“Dean-”

“I did that to him!” Dean threw out his arm, pointing fiercely at the sickeningly familiar smell of burning flesh. “ _That's on me!_ ”

“Yes, it is.”

Cas' quiet agreement was not what Dean was expecting. He let his arm drop.

Cas stepped, impossibly, closer. Dean did not step back.

“So you take that, Dean, and you live with it.” Cas' eyes were earnest, and pissed, and reflected the flames. “And  _be_  better.”

***

Kevin's ashes were scattered to the wind and Dean and Cas stood in the bunker, facing each other, poised for a fight but Dean didn't want one this time. Somewhere between getting his grace back and getting back to Dean, Cas had found a new jacket. It was brown, and long, and its meaning, to Dean, was obvious.

“Crowley can cast the angel out,” Cas said.

“Crowley,” Dean repeated.

“He is the king of hell,” said Cas. “You saw what he did to Samandriel.”

“You want me to let him torture Sam?”

“It's not Sam,” Cas said, and then at the look on Dean's face, added, “Not really.”

Dean's guilt was a writhing, living thing inside him.

“I can heal Sam, once the angel is dealt with,” Cas said, and then he looked away. “I can do that much.”

Because Cas was an angel again. Dean had barely gotten used to the idea of him as a human. And still, Cas would not tell him how, what he had done. Dean suspected Cas was not proud.

Dean did not want to tell him that he'd liked him better as an equal. It made it easier to hate angels then.

_Be better_.

What would Sam want him to do?

The answer was easy. Whatever it took.


End file.
